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Stockton Sand Dunes 8.2.14

Not long ago a myself and few photography mates headed up to Stockton to spend the weekend shooting the sand dunes. I have always been fascinated by shapes and shadows formed by the wind on the dunes and jumped at the opportunity to shoot them. The most important thing to do is to let the car tyres down to about 15 psi as without doing so the car would get bogged in the sand.

Chris and Don at the start

Stockton Beach is located north of Newcastle and is famous for its fishing, the sand dunes and the Sygna Wreck.

MV Sygna

The Sygna wreck has been there since 1974 although there is not too much left of it now as you can see above. I had expected something a bit more photogenic than this so was a disappointed.

I definitely wasn’t disappointed by the sand dunes though and we shot them in the afternoon, at sunset, sunrise and the early morning. Each time they looked different due to the amount of light falling on them and the position of the sun.

Shades and Curves

You can see in the shot above the shape of one of the sand dunes and the colour as the sun sets. The wind has created an interesting shape with eye catching ripples.

Perspective

In this shot the sun is setting over Newcastle and if you look closely you can see my mate Chris setting up for shot on the distant dune.

No Dune Access

4WD drive access to the dunes is very limited and they can only be accessed by the tourist buses which do not operate during the best times for shooting the dunes. We covered a lot of distance by foot walking over the dunes to find compositions that we liked.

Ripples

Pre Dawn near Tin City

Stockton Beach is also home to Tin City which are a collection of fisherman’s shacks that were built after the 2nd World War and are still in use.

Tin City

Stockton Beach is definitely worth another visit and will be organising a trip in the near future.